March 11th, 2987

Weather: clear Mood: Emotionally exhausted Music: Mitski - Towney

Dear Diary:

I had to walk part of the way, because I got too exhausted to fly more than a few feet, but I got here somehow. It was mid-day on the 10th when I arrived, and that was yesterday. It was raining, thankfully, and the sun was completely hidden for most of the day. Eventually I got into the mountains and found the pass with the totally not fake-looking cliff in it.

I knew this part would come sooner or later. I'd have to turn up in Wizard City, looking like a hobo and, strictly speaking, not a wizard, and ask for directions to the Lyceum. If you'd think it'd go badly, you're not even scratching the surface.

Bonnie thinks only wizards can get into the city. That's not exactly true. Anyone can get in-if they have a wizard endorse them and then make an apointment with Grand Master Wizard to get permission to stay in the city for an amount of time. Which means that I had to sit outside that secret gate and wait for someone I knew to pass through. The irritating thing is, I know the password, but the gate doesn't know my voice.

See, if I hadn't been whacked out this whole time, I would have just gone to the Ice Kingdom, an hour from my place, and gotten Simon to take me there. But no, it was some mystic quest I had to set out on alone... despite the fact that I might be exhausted and starving by the time I got there. I remember when I was always well-rested and my powers were reliable and so was my head, to some extent... Glob, what happened to me in the last six months?

But I was there, and there was no going back. I needed to get in soon, too, because the sun was coming out. Even in the shadow, it was damn hot and if you think you have trouble with heatstroke, try being a vampire and a demon and underweight. So I sat and waited in the shadow of the side wall of the canyon, drinking some red from the rocks and feeling refreshed, if sunbaked.

I waited six hours. Some random cubeheaded dude appeared on a broomstick, heading towards the magic gate, and I decided to try my luck.

"Hey!" I shouted.

He circled around in the air and shouted. "Identify yourself, Normie."

"Marceline Abadeer, Queen of the Vampires. I have business with the Master."

The cubehead looked at me as if to say bitch, please. "Yeah, and I'm Princess of the Candy Kingdom. Get lost, poser."

I waited another hour. A few wizards came out later. I guess the Master sent them to look for me, but I had enough places to hide, and they just smoked and poked around just outside the gate for a minute.

After another half-hour, I saw exactly the second-to-last person I wanted to: Ash. Not cool Ash Jorgensen from diving club, Ash the Enchanter that I used to date, Ash that tried to brainwash me. There he was, smugly riding his smug carpet. Am I bitter? I don't think so. Smug smughole. Well, thank Grod, he didn't see me. He said the password and rode right into the city. I ran for the gates, but they closed before I ever got there.

I sat with my back against the gate that night. I may have gotten a few minutes of sleep, but nothing refreshing. I had to move again before light, because the canyon didn't offer much shelter. I had barely taken shelter among the rock formations when Ash left the city again.

I suddenly had a sickening thought in my mind: of all the people I was liable to meet out there, he was the one most likely to let me into the city, if he thought it'd get him something. Barring the miniscule chance of Simon showing up, it might be my only opportunity to get in. Why? I kept thinking. He's literally one of the worst people I've ever met.

But some sense of fate had already taken over. If he was my only chance to get in, I couldn't pass it up. I muttered "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," and then I called out to Ash.

"Ash, get down here."

He swooped around and was all up in my face in about four seconds.

"Um... fancy meeting you here, babe." He made that clichéd "sexy" face he always made. I nearly slapped it off of him.

"Ash, I need to get into the city."

"I, uh, thought you kinda, had some twerps beat me up."

I nearly exploded. No, I didn't make Finn and Jake beat him half-to-death, they just did it. And what if I had? He brainwashed me.

"Ash, listen. You can't just control people like that."

He blew the hair out of his face, but it was more like he blew my words out of the air before they landed in his ears.

"Ash, listen. I didn't make them..."

He turned his carpet and went to drive away.

And then there was this feeling in my chest, like... like I was about to do the hardest thing ever, but it was somehow easy at the same time... like I knew I was going to do it, so it wasn't even me doing it anymore, but like Fate or Grod or somebody else doing it with my hand.

And I said it. I apologized to him. "Ash, LISTEN! I'm sorry for that, even if you aren't sorry for anything."

He turned back towards me and stared at me for like ten seconds. "Wow, this is new. Trying to win me back?" he said with a scoff.

"Ash, no, just... no. But listen, I forgive you for what you did," I said. I don't know how, but I said it.

"Like, why, though?"

"Because you can't make me be mad at you. I won't let you anymore."

"So you're not mad that I was, like, a bit of a jerk sometimes."

My mind said "!", but my mouth said "Uh, yeah."

"Gimme ten bucks," he said.

"What?!"

"Look, if people ask, I got to give them some reason why I let you into the city."

So he let me in, and I actually gave him ten pieces of silver. I'm more surprised that he left me alone after that, instead of following me around trying to convince me I should date him, but he told me he had somewhere to be and I guess he was telling the truth.

It hurt like hell to apologize, because he really did deserve to be stomped by that giant foot, but somehow forgiving him didn't hurt. Maybe it's like the ultimate way of showing that you're better than the other person. But is that really forgiving if you say "I forgive you" but mean "fuck you?" I'd ask Mom if she were here. I'd ask Dad, but he always said forgiveness was an infectious disease. That kinda figures, I guess, being a demon lord and all. "Eternal spirit of damnation and revenge," and all that.

Wizard City is about how I remembered it from the last time Ash dragged me there. It looks a lot like what was left in Tennessee about ten years after the War: a poorly maintained mountain-village type of deal, all peeling paint, ugly white shutters and sagging roofs. The streets are paved with cobblestones, more or less just because they could afford cobblestones, but it somehow only makes it seem more like a medieval shithole. For that matter, do you know what's in Tennessee now? Breakfast Kingdom. Barf.

But I'd never tell the Master that his little town wasn't perfect. He's a bit sensitive, like Bonnibel is about the Candy Kingdom, except more so. Most people who become wizards and princesses are like that: usually they were picked on in school, so they're... sensitive. The big egos, the ceremonies, the titles-it's all because a couple of kids a grade ahead of them used to lock them in lockers or hang them up by their jackets. It was different with Bonnie, but with the same result.

Anyways, if you're dealing with balloon people, you don't throw darts. Even I know that.

My meeting with the Master went well, though. I came here to ask a simple question, and I thought I might as well ask him. That way, he didn't have to grant me any time in the city if he didn't want to. But he was actually very helpful. He told me all about the college, how I could get in, and how much it would cost.

I sat in his massive office, struggling to make eye contact with his face, a story and a half above me. I've heard he was an orangutan in a zoo before the war. Lich Radiation has done stranger things, but with that dreadlocked white beard he looks more like the abominable snowman than a giant mutant ape. Fupping terrifying, whatever he is.

So here's what he told me: Twenty years after the Atlanta Bombing and the end of the Old World, the last few really educated mutants and surviving humans got together and decided to preserve what they knew. They built libraries, like the one near the Candy Kingdom but bigger and better, and reprinted ancient books. They tought their followers everything about the Old World, what dead languages they spoke there, and what mistakes they made, so that the world might have a chance to avoid them this time around. They made a college like the colleges of the Old World, and actually kept it open for the last 1,000 years, somehow-most likely by getting chummy with the wizards who came along later.

And they raised up heroes to protect the school: The Knights of the Heroic Lyceum. The Master rambled on and kept losing his place, but the image I got from what he told me was beautiful: thirteen of the bravest warriors of every generation, all mounted on horses or dragons or whatever else they could ride, with swords that glowed by moonlight and flamed in the daylight. And they rode to protect the knowledge of the Old World. The Master had fought alongside them once. He got a tear in his massive eye when he told me about that battle, and as much as I hate to admit it, it was a bit contagious. I'd look good in armor, come to think of it.

The next semester (whatever that is) starts a month from now, he said. It costs a lot more than I thought it would, but the Master said that I, of all people, would have no trouble finding the money. He said it two or three times, in fact, and raised those massive pelts that he has for eyebrows as if to make it perfectly obvious that he had failed to make something obvious. Also, there's a test I'd have to take, but he kept saying that it wouldn't be a problem. It separates the adults from the children, he said, like that's supposed to be encouraging.

Well, I think I'm going to give it a try, assuming I can find one of these mysterious benefactors that the Master mentioned... He let me stay the night in the guest wing of his palace, and said that he'd let me see his best healer this afternoon about my problems.

You know, it's a shame he's ruler of these dongwads, because he's actually really nice.